Famous non-fiction book Beijing Express set for film adaptation

Daming Chen and the cover of “The Peking Express”

Daming Chen/Perseus Books, LLC

One of the world’s greatest real-life train robbery stories is set to return to the big screen in China. Director Daming Chen and veteran producer Chris Lee have collaborated to develop a film adaptation of James Zimmerman’s popular non-fiction book. The Beijing Express: The bandits who robbed a train, stunned the West, and destroyed the Republic of China.

The new film, like the book, recounts the improbable saga of a 1923 incident formerly known as the “Lincheng Fury,” which erupted when Chinese bandits raided a luxury express train bound for Beijing and took more than 300 international hostages—one that captivated the world. and sparking a six-week geopolitical confrontation. A subject of popular fascination for a century, the event inspired no less than Josef von Sternberg’s classic 1932 romance/adventure novel Shanghai Expressstarring Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong, as well as two subsequent remakes produced by Paramount Pictures.

Zimmerman’s book is the result of extensive research in Chinese and international archives. It was published to wide acclaim last year, with the The New York Times It was named an “Editors’ Choice” and Financial Times Writing, “Extremely unusual are the events recounted in Beijing Express It reads like fiction… and results in a gripping story of robbery, murder, hostages and intrigue.

Zimmerman describes his story as follows: “Shanghai, 1923. A blue luxury train departs from China’s cosmopolitan port city and heads into the lawless heart of the country. A thousand heavily armed bandits and disaffected ex-soldiers led by a charismatic 10-year-old rebel await the attack. A 25-year-old determined to liberate his province from the yoke of a brutal warlord. His daring plan is not just to rob the train, but to capture its rich and famous passengers, and use them as bargaining chips to force the weak Chinese government to grant him independent control of his native land. His raids will… The Beijing Express had a series of astonishing consequences: attracting the attention of the world press, toppling a Chinese president, boosting Japanese ambitions to penetrate the country, inspiring a Hollywood blockbuster with Marlene Dietrich, and inflaming the revolutionary ambitions of a young communist named Mao Zedong. Linqing, this forgotten incident involved a global group of dictators, diplomats, business tycoons and good Samaritans who all fought – sometimes against each other’s interests – for the release of the hostages during six agonizing weeks in May and September. June 1923. The astonishing story of what these hostages endured is told from the perspective of one of the great foreign correspondents of the period, John B. Powell, a tough, Hemingway-esque adventurer who happens to be on board the ship. The train was attacked. He will not only document the event, but will play a heroic role in its conclusion.”

Zimmerman has lived in China for nearly 30 years and works as a lawyer by day. He is also known to be a prominent long-term insider of Beijing’s expatriate community, having served four terms as president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

A special event unveils plans for the film’s adaptation Beijing Express The conference was held in Beijing on Friday, attracting a crowd of about 100 people from the city’s business, creative and diplomatic community. Among the most prominent attendees was the US Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, who made some opening remarks praising the film project as an opportunity for the kind of people-to-people cooperation that the United States and China so desperately need today.

“It is clear that this is not an easy time in the relationship between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China,” Burns said. “It’s a really competitive time; it’s a time full of misunderstanding and competition. So, what we have to do is keep the two countries together, and we have to keep the two peoples together.”

He explained that he was attending the event because he wanted to support Zimmerman, Chen and their various collaborators on the transnational film project “to give us an example of Americans and Chinese working together.”

“That can be powerful, and film can be very powerful in the modern world,” he added. This is what we need. You know, both governments will find a way forward and will be responsible in our competition, but I believe that the people of both countries can lead us forward for decades, where our two societies can continue to not only coexist but actually do things. Good things together.”

Beijing Express The film is expected to be a co-production featuring Chinese and international film interests, according to the filmmakers. The international nature of the project would seem a good fit for lead producer Chris Lee, a one-time head of production at Columbia TriStar whose diverse credits include studio titles such as Valkyrie And Superman returnsIn addition to Chinese features (Huayi Brothers One foot off the ground) and Asian festival favorites (Josh Kim How to Win at Checkers (Every Time)). Li describes the project as “a great opportunity for cross-border collaboration with an international cast on a story of historical importance to both China and the rest of the world.”

The filmmakers say they expect to shoot the film in many of the same locations where the heist and its aftermath took place a century ago — “in the mysterious mountainous region of China’s southern Shandong province.” While researching his book, Zimmerman took a trip through the Chinese countryside where a train derailed and hundreds of hostages were led to a bandit’s hideout.

“The local Shandong authorities took a keen interest in the story and welcomed the opportunity to film in different locations, where much of the key architecture still exists 100 years later,” says project director Chen.

An actor turned writer/director, Chen made his breakthrough in the early 2000s with elaborate Chinese commercial projects such as slot (2006) and One foot off the ground (2008). Last year he wrote a Chinese song starring Andy Lau Moscow operationWhich grossed about $95 million, and his next film as a director is unpublisheda dramatic thriller that will be screened next month at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival.

Talent (l Beijing Express(It would inevitably come from a multinational group, since the passengers pulled by the bandits from the derailed train were prominent citizens from China, the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Mexico, Germany and Denmark), Chen explains. “And those who play the bandits will be a mixed bag – if not an eclectic and intelligent band – of heroes, scoundrels and eccentrics.”

“Jim’s book is a moving and surprising book because it is a true story that resonates today,” Lee adds.